Daddy's Little Girl
by Iceman Bobby Drake
Summary: Nine years ago, Emma Frost realized that her father had no place in his heart for her. Based on events of Emma Frost 10


"What's this?" Lucien's harsh voice broke the tense silence—no one had risen above a whisper since they had sent the tape hours earlier. Emma looked up, first to Lucien's shadowy figure, leaning against the doorway. His unnerving gaze, one eye brown and the other white, drew Emma's with it to land on Milo and Stu.

The two croonies must have just entered, though Emma didn't remember seeing them leave. Stu held a package, which he handed over quickly under Lucien's hard glare. "Guess it's Frost's response," he said. Emma bit back a rude response, tempted to point out that the package didn't say 'Frost' in block letters on the outside for no reason.

"S'kinda heavy—" Milo commented, receiving the kind of look from Lucien that Emma wanted to give him. Lucien only kept them around to do the heavy lifting.

"—we think he sent back the tape."

Emma felt her heart constrict, and she watched anxiously as Lucien opened the package. Though she hadn't been sure if her father would save her, of course the core of one's hope can never be dashed until the time of judgement comes, and she had always hoped that he would respond. Because it would mean that he still loved her.

"No, this is a different tape. Labeled 'JUST FOR YOU'," Lucien said gruffly as he pulled it from the package and turned it over.

He moved for the TV, the rest of his crowd following behind him at a careful distance. Even Troy stood, his hand holding hers and lifting her arm from her lap as he stepped away. When he felt the resistance on his arm, he turned and looked down at her questioningly. It was the only thing that coerced her into standing up and moving with him to a place where they could see the screen.

Lucien put in the tape, and Emma watched the screen come to life on the familiar face of her father, exactly as she remembered it, hard and stern. When he began to speak, Emma slowly lowered her eyes from the screen to the dirty cement floor beneath her feet. None of the others would hear it, but she knew the tone in his voice right away. It was not the tone of a man desperate for the release of his precious daughter. It was the tone he used in business deals. More specifically, the tone he used to break a deal he'd only pretended to consider.

"Greetings. Winston Frost here. Whoever you are, one thing is clear—you've gotten my attention, and thus I applaud you. To have managed a minor miracle where so many others have failed…bully for you."

"I followed your instructions and responded within the time allotted. I also refrained from contacting the police as per your order."

Emma slid her hands across the opposite arms, hugging her arms across her chest. The gorgeous white dress she'd been wearing when herself and Troy had been attacked was dirty, especially around the bottom few inches where it had drug the filthy ground. Dirt marks marred it up to her knees, accompanied by a few tears from being thrown onto the ground for the sake of the video. She'd never looked so bedraggled in her life, and it had never bothered her less that it did at that moment.

She could do nothing but stand there, like a lamb to the slaughter, listening to her father's deceiving voice and knowing that in moments that Lucien and Troy and all of the others would know that their little plan hadn't worked. She didn't want to think of what they would do to Troy, and probably to her as well, when they found out what she already knew.

"But, really…two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Do you really think my daughter is worth that much? The same daughter that turned her back on me? Told me my money wasn't good enough?"

As the tide changed unfavorably, one by one Emma's captors realized that he wasn't going to give them any money. She could feel the quiet anger building up in Lucien. But still she didn't look up. She closed her eyes, hugging herself tighter, her pain growing on her face with each word that fell from her father's lips. With his final words, she visibly winced, drawing her shoulders up and retreating her head down to her chest, her brown hair falling in front of her shoulder and hiding her face from the accusing stares that had turned on her.

"Well…you want to know how much I think she's worth? Nothing. Oh, and as for hanging her, I hope you brought a long enough noose. Because she's dead to me already."


End file.
